Sure. I know the original question wasnt the same as the second but you can still answer it if you want. Or just ask me another.

For me experience is, as you said, subjective. What i dont get is how someone has an "exerience" and comes to the conclusion that it is one specific god, usually one they were told exists by parents or their community. Mormons are a good example of this. They all have that one thing that they base their faith on but they are very much pressured by their community to have that one example in order to keep their faith. That and i have yet to hear a convincing "experience" that holds up to scrutiny. Sam Harris has written a few books on the matter and i plan to read them and then read any counter arguments if they are in print.

Sure. I know the original question wasnt the same as the second but you can still answer it if you want. Or just ask me another.

For me experience is, as you said, subjective. What i dont get is how someone has an "exerience" and comes to the conclusion that it is one specific god, usually one they were told exists by parents or their community. Mormons are a good example of this. They all have that one thing that they base their faith on but they are very much pressured by their community to have that one example in order to keep their faith. That and i have yet to hear a convincing "experience" that holds up to scrutiny. Sam Harris has written a few books on the matter and i plan to read them and then read any counter arguments if they are in print.

I'd rather leave the ethics question alone in that regard.

The problem again is that you're applying the wrong standard of ascertaining "truth" to this problem.

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“There are only two kinds of people, those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don’t know it.” – G. K. Chesterton - The Mercy of Mr. Arnold Bennett, Fancies vs. Fads

No problem, it was funny. When i saw Obama's name come up I said to myself oh ****, here we go. My girl friends grandfather can't go 5 mins without bringing him up so I wasnt about to get into it, lol. I can only handle so much of the interweaving of politics and religion.

Who really threw me off was cresybear...one minute i see a post saying they are not christian and then hashtagging godisnotdead the next...i was like wtf...

No it means that truth is evaluated differently from one subject to another. An argument can be made that a religion is falsifiable by undergoing its rituals and living out its ethics to see if there is any truth where the rubber meets the road and beyond to direct experience of the divine (if such a thing is a goal). However, the results will always be irreducibly personal and for that matter, so will the process of "trying out" the religion. Trying to quantify that experience (holding it up to scrutiny as you say) per Empiricism and Positivism (I assume this is what you're looking for) is a mugs game.

I agree that truth is evaluated differently from one subject to another. I still think there is something to be said for looking into what causes there could be for what one would claim was a experience with the divine. Its more the the method of how they come to knowledge that is an issue for me. It boils down to faith, which is really just pretending to know something you really don't(many people do this regardless of the topic but when claims are made you should be able to back it up with something). I view atheism differently because I am not claiming to know that God doesnt exist, just that I think its unlikey and as of yet i havn't been presented with credible evidence, had a divine experience myself(yet) or been persueded by any aruguement using logic or rational thought.

What if I told you that what you just told me about faith and proper justification of religious experience is only repetition of a contemporary dogma which is the result of the limits placed on what could be real by Descartes - that only what can be quantified can be said to be real - which undergird contemporary western thought?

What if I told you that the first principles of any system of knowledge must be and are always taken on faith?

What if I asked you to compile a personal list of value statements and ethics. How many are at their base, taken on faith? I'd bet that each of them are.

Rationalism (logic et. al.) has it's limits. It can't deal with complex systems containing a large amount of interdependent variables. It works well when you can break down a system into smaller representative samples. You need to expand your toolkit

What if I told you that what you just told me about faith and proper justification of religious experience is only repetition of a contemporary dogma which is the result of the limits placed on what could be real by Descartes - that only what can be quantified can be said to be real - which undergird contemporary western thought?

Repetition or not there is a good reason why western thought has moved in this direction. Science has the ablity to predict likely outcomes...religious experiences have not shown the same degree of usefulness. People quantify things in order to know more about them and to solve problems they face. If we do reach something that cannot be quantified...i agree hold off judgement until we can quantify it or question whether we should bother to quantify it, would there be any gain from it? When it comes to "religious experiences" I think there are many instances that can be quantified such as mental illness (to the confines of what we call certain disorders), the want or need to fit into a community, being delusional, etc. I can't say with 100% certainty that all religious experiences can be chalked up to one of those things but they usually appear to fall into one of those categories.

What if I told you that the first principles of any system of knowledge must be and are always taken on faith?

I would say you are using a different definition of faith. This is often a hang up on these types of discussions. Can you provide an example within science where faith must be used? I'm not trying to be condenscending, i just want to know what your trying to convey.

What if I asked you to compile a personal list of value statements and ethics. How many are at their base, taken on faith? I'd bet that each of them are.

Again i think your operating with a different idea of what faith means. I think the word may have been hijacked before our time.

Rationalism (logic et. al.) has it's limits. It can't deal with complex systems containing a large amount of interdependent variables. It works well when you can break down a system into smaller representative samples. You need to expand your toolkit

Rationality having limits is not an excuse to allow people to make claims about religion or religous experiences and expect others to conform to it or accept it, which is realy where the problem lies...i dont care if people have odd or undetermined experiences just dont expect others to take your word for it when asked why. To counter your complex systems statement...the universe is what i would call a complex system with a large amount of interdependent variables...yet using logic and rational thought we can send people into space, land remote contol vehicals on other planets and see far off stars. Name a "religious experience" did has accomplished any of that.

By expanding my toolkit...what do you mean. Are you suggesting that supernatural things exist and that i should look into them? Are you saying to pray or meditate?

The evidentialist objection states that one ought to only hold rational beliefs. Beliefs that are rational are either basic (intuitive, such as a belief that this these colors and shapes I see correlate with objects in front of me) or supported by evidence (be it philosophical or empirical).

1) Some theists accept the objection but argue that belief in the existence of God is supported by evidence and therefore is rational and ought to be believed. Historically, Anselm, Descartes and Aquinas (to a lesser degree) fall into that category.

2) Other theists hold that belief in God is a basic belief in that it is derived from simple experience, typically "mystical experience" (including things like feeling absolved of one's guilt, feeling convicted, feeling like God is telling you something). However, others (such as Calvin) extend these beliefs all the way to a simple intuitive feeling (called sensus divinitatis). Both accounts are often called reformed epistemology (in reference to religion) and is supported most notably by people such as Plantinga and Alston (as well as reformation theologians).

3) The final way around the evidentialist objection is simply reject it. Rejecting that one ought to only hold rationally held beliefs results in what is called fideism. Fideism can be more pragmatic (such as a typical (but uncharitable) reading of Pascal) or philosophical (Kierkegaard and Tillich primarily).

If either of you were seeking outside sources to accompany this discussion, hopefully this will be of help.

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“There are only two kinds of people, those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don’t know it.” – G. K. Chesterton - The Mercy of Mr. Arnold Bennett, Fancies vs. Fads

In post 71 and 75, he is essentially appealing to a modified reform epistemology, while weakening the evidentialist objection in 77. He is somewhere between my 2 and 3 right now.

But I'll wait and let him spell them out for you.

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“There are only two kinds of people, those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don’t know it.” – G. K. Chesterton - The Mercy of Mr. Arnold Bennett, Fancies vs. Fads

No problem, it was funny. When i saw Obama's name come up I said to myself oh ****, here we go. My girl friends grandfather can't go 5 mins without bringing him up so I wasnt about to get into it, lol. I can only handle so much of the interweaving of politics and religion. Who really threw me off was cresybear...one minute i see a post saying they are not christian and then hashtagging godisnotdead the next...i was like wtf...

Yes, morality is determined by the culture you are raised in and changes overtime. I am not saying that whatever a culture comes up with as being moral would agree with what I would consider moral so no I would not say that genocide is moraly correct to me and i have never needed a supernatural power or diety to tell me genocide is wrong.

So if someone truly in their heart of hearts believes they are justified in committing genocide, then they are justified?

So if someone truly in their heart of hearts believes they are justified in committing genocide, then they are justified?

So Hitler did nothing wrong?

'Justified' and 'moral' aren't synonyms.

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Evil presupposes a moral decision, intention, and some forethought. A moron doesn't stop to think or reason. He acts on instinct, like a stable animal, convinced he's doing good, that he's always right, and sanctimoniously proud to go around ****ing up . . .What the world needs is more thoroughly evil people and fewer idiot ****heads.